But Hortense, though better days intervened now and then, did not improve
essentially; and she contrived at the climacteric moment of Amy's career to
make herself felt--unduly felt--after all.
The wedding took place during the latter half of April, as demanded by the
enterprising wooer. Then there would be a rapid ten-day wedding-journey,
followed by a prompt, business-like occupancy of the new apartment on the
first of May exactly.
Pearson's parents prepared to welcome Amy handsomely; and her own people--
some of them--came on from Iowa to attend the ceremony. There was her
mother, who had been rather disconcerted by the sudden shift, but who was
satisfied with George Pearson the moment she saw him, and who found him
even more vivid and agreeable than Amy's photograph of him had led her to
expect. There was the aunt, who had lived a bare, starved life, and who
luxuriated, along with her sister, in the splendor of the Louis Quinze
chamber. And there was a friendly, wide-awake brother of fourteen who was
tucked away in the chintz room up stairs, whence he issued to fraternize in
the ball-room with Joe Foster, whose exacerbated spirit he did much to
soothe.
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